None
Now in her 80s, West—founder of the Harlem Renaissance magazine Challenge and author of a novel and many short stories—checks in with this pleasant if scattershot tale of the black bourgeoisie in a Martha's Vineyard community called the Oval. It is 1953, and Shelby Coles is preparing to marry a white jazz musician, and the Oval's inhabitants are dismayed that someone "who could have had her pick of the best of breed in her own race" would choose to marry outside of it. West then recounts the Coles family history, most of which is palatable but irrelevant. Once Shelby got lost, and, because of her light skin, the people who found her had trouble realizing that she was the child being sought. So one woman asked her point-blank whether she was "colored," and Shelby responded, "I don't know." Shelby's sister, Liz, has married a dark-skinned doctor and given birth to an equally dark daughter, who is spurned by their light-skinned grandmother. Shelby and Liz's father has had an ongoing affair with a woman for many years while keeping up appearances with his wife, but, about to turn 40, his mistress has decided to marry someone else. Another island-dweller, Lute McNeil, who has had three daughters with three different white women, has decided that he should be the one to marry Shelby, although his reasons are never clear beyond a vague desire to be a legitimate part of the Oval. These stories, full of interesting detail, work hard at interpreting racial politics, but they are all cause and no effect. When Shelby finally agrees to meet Lute the night before her wedding, there is little sense that it is a result of earlier being chewed out by her father for not having seriously considered black men as potential partners, and in turn the tragedy that follows seems random. Although written with the sure hand of a practiced short-story writer, this doesn't achieve the resonance of a deeply layered novel. (Book-of-the-Month/Quality Paperback Book clubs featured selections)
None NonePub Date: Jan. 6, 1995
ISBN: 0-385-47143-2
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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